Chapter 18: Key Terms

Plessy v. Ferguson: An 1896 Supreme Court case that ruled that as long as blacks and whites were "separate but equal," segregation and Jim Crow laws were constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.John Muir: Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892, which dedicated itself to preserving and enjoying America's great mountains.Comstock Act: An 1873 law that prohibited circulation of "obscene literature," defined as including most information on sex, reproduction, and birth control.Booker T. Washington: Washington both taught and exemplified the goal of self-help. He focused on industrial education over book education, sending students into the world with the ability to make a living. He made his Atlanta Compromise in 1895.liberal arts: A form of education pioneered by President Charles W. Eliot at Harvard University, whereby students chose from a range of electives, shaping their own curricula as they developed skills in research, critical thinking, and leadership. Antiquities Act: The 1906 act that enabled the U.S. president, without congressional approval, to set aside "objects of historic and scientific interest" as national monuments.Young Men Christian's Association (YMCA): Introduced in Boston in 1851, the YMCA promoted muscular Christianity, combining evangelism with athletic facilities where men could make themselves "clean and strong."Atlanta Compromise: An 1895 address by Booker T. Washington that urged whites and African Americans to work together for the progress of all. The speech was widely interpreted as approving racial segregation.maternalism: The belief that women should contribute to civic and political life through their special talents as mothers, Christians, and moral guides. Materialists put this ideology into action by creating dozens of social reform organizations.Woman's Christian Temperance Union: An organization advocating the prohibition of liquor that spread rapidly after 1879, when charismatic Frances Willard became its leader. Advocating suffrage and a host of reform activities, it launched tens of thousands of women into public life and was the first nationwide organization to condemn domestic violence.Ida B. Wells: In 1887, Ida Wells was thrown from a train in Tennessee for refusing to vacate her seat in a section reserved for whites on the grounds that she was a lady in the ladies' car. She sued and won in local courts, but Tennessee's supreme court reversed the ruling. She was a member of the NACW and launched a one-woman campaign on lynching.National Association of Colored Women (NACW): An organization created in 1896 by African American women to provide community support.National Women Suffrage Association: A suffrage group headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony that stressed the need for women to lead organizations on their own behalf. The NWSA focuses exclusively on women's rights and took up the battle for a federal women's suffrage amendment. The movement for women's suffrage reunited the association in 1890.feminism: The ideology that women should enter the public sphere not only to work on behalf of others, but also for their own equal rights and advancement. Feminists moved beyond advocacy of women's voting rights to seek greater autonomy in professional careers, property rights, and personal relationships.fact worship: The theory that one could rely only on hard facts to understand the "laws of life."natural selection: The theory that those of a species best fit to survive because of their genetic traits would outlive the rest and pass on their good genes.Social Darwinism: An idea, actually formulated not by Charles Darwin but by Herbert Spencer, that human society advanced through ruthless competition and the "survival of the fittest."eugenics: An emerging "science" of human breeding in the late nineteenth century that argued that mentally deficient people should be prevented from reproducing.realism: A movement that called for writers and artists to portray daily life as precisely and truly as possible.naturalism: A literary movement that suggested that human beings were not so much rational agents and shapers of their own destinies as blind victims of forces beyond their control--including their own subconscious impulses.modernism: A movement that questioned the ideals of progress and order, rejected realism, and emphasized new cultural forms. Modernism became the first great literary and artistic movement of the twentieth century and remains influential today.In their own way, these writers and artists contributed to a broad movement to masculinize American culture.American Protective Association (APA): A powerful political organization of militant Protestants in the 1890's. In its violent anti-Catholicism and calls for restrictions on immigrants, the APA foreshadowed the revival of the KKK of the 1920's.Social Gospel: A movement to renew religious faith through dedication to public welfare and social justice, reforming both society and the self through Christian service.fundamentalism: A term adopted by Protestants, between the 1890's and the 1910's, who rejected modernism and historical interpretations of scripture and asserted the literal truth of the Bible. Fundamentalists have historically seen secularism and religious relativism as markers of sin that will be punished by God.secularism: The principle that government and religion should not mix.